Goodbye NZ!

Well, we have less than 2 days left in NZ...What a year! Whether it was cruising through the southern Fjords, sitting out at a bar in downtown Wellington, looking out at the yachts in the harbour, or hiking between active volcanoes through snow and ash...it was amazing.

I can honestly say there's nowhere like NZ, and I know it'll be very hard to leave. But leave we will and on Saturday we'll fly off to LA. Then after 3 months in the US, we'll hit the UK and set up shop there for a bit.

I'm sure it'll take time for the experiences over the year to sink in, especially since it hasn't sunk in that were leaving yet...

So we'll either catch up with you in the US or when we get to the UK, and I promise we'll try v. hard not to bore you with all of our stories!

Milford Track

We came, we saw, and we...tramped!

It took us four days and was over 33 miles, but we made it, and what a journey! Fjordland is one of favourite places in the world. With all its Fjords along the west coast and verdant, rainforest covered valleys, peaks cloaked with mist and glacial fed lakes, and waterfalls its a wonderfully atmospheric place. The Milford Track is the best known of the walks in Fjordland, and one of the best known in the world.




It traces a route across from Lake Te Anau through the Clinton Valley and up and over the MacKinnon Pass through the Arthur Valley to Milford Sound, the most famous of the Fjords in NZ. We even got to see the 5th highest waterfall in the world - Sutherland falls, which drops in 3 sections over 500m from Lake Quill tucked away in the mountain peaks. Not only did we see it, but got totally soaked by edging our way behind it, through tons and tons of icy cold water - what an experience!



The hike was easily one of the highlights of our year, esp. as we spent the 1st of Jan with our heads amongst the peaks on the top of MacKinnon Pass with stunning views, and even saw an avalanche cascading snow and ice from a glacier above us. Not a bad way to spend New Years Day!